band of brothers小说[分享]

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sounds of battle were coming closer. to the rear, south of bastogne, the germans were about to cut the highway and complete the encirclement of the bastogne area. easy had no artillery or air support. it was short on food, mortar ammunition, and other necessary equipment, and completely lacked winter clothing even as the temperature began to plunge below the freezing mark. but thanks to 2nd lieutenant rice, it had grenades and m-l ammunition.
the curahee scrapbook spoke for easy, for 2nd battalion, for the 506th: "we weren't particularly elated at being here. rumors are that krauts are everywhere and hitting hard. farthest from your mind is the thought of falling back. in fact it isn't there at all. and so you dig your hole carefully and deep, and wait, not for that mythical super man, but for the enemy you had beaten twice before and will again. you look first to the left, then right, at your buddies also preparing. you feel confident with bill over there. you know you can depend on him."

11 'they got us surrounded-the poor bastards"
*
bastogne
december 19-31,1944
on december 19 easy went into the line south of foy as one part of the ring defense of bastogne. it was, in effect, one of the wagons in the circle. inside were the 101st airborne, combat command b of the 10th armored, plus the 463rd field artillery battalion. against this force the germans launched as many as fifteen divisions, four of them armored, supported by heavy artillery.
the fighting was furious and costly. during the nineteenth and twentieth, the 1st battalion of the 506th, supported by team desobry of the 10th armored, engaged the 2nd panzer division at neville, northeast of foy. when the battalion pulled back beyond foy on the twentieth, it had lost thirteen officers and 199 enlisted men (out of about 600). together with team desobry, it had destroyed at least thirty enemy tanks and inflicted casualties of between 500 and 1,000. most important, it had held for forty-eight hours while the defense was being set up around bastogne.
easy and the other companies badly needed the time, as the situation in the defensive perimeter was fluid and confused. easy's left was on the bastogne-noville road, linked to 3rd battalion on the other side. dog company, on the right flank of 2nd battalion, extended to the railroad station at halt, but it was not linked to the 501st pir. winters worried that the battalion was not in the right position; he sent nixon back to regimental hq to check; nixon returned to say the battalion was where it was supposed to be.
easy's position was in a wood looking out on a grazing field that sloped down to the village of foy, about a kilometer away. the trees were pines, 8 to 10 inches in diameter, planted in rows. the men dug foxholes to form a main line of resistance a few meters inside the woods, with outposts on the edge. winters set up battalion hq just behind the company at the south edge of the woods. the first night on the mlr was quiet, even peaceful; the fighting was to the north, in noville, 4 kilometers away.
at dawn on december 20, a heavy mist hung over the woods and fields. winters rose and looked around. to his left he saw a german soldier in his long winter overcoat emerge from the woods. he had no rifle, no pack. he walked to the middle of a clearing. two men with winters instinctively brought their rifles to their shoulders, but he gave them a hand signal to hold their fire. the americans watched as the german took off his overcoat, pulled down his pants, squatted, and relieved himself. when he was finished, winters hollered in his best german, "kommen sie hier!" the soldier put up his hands and walked over to surrender. winters went through his pockets; all he had were a few pictures and the end of a loaf of hard black bread.
"think of this," winters commented. "here is a german soldier, in the light of early dawn, who went to take a crap, got turned around in the woods, walked through our lines, past the company cp and ended up behind the battalion cp! that sure was some line of defense we had that first night!"
german soldiers were not the only ones who got lost that day. medic ralph spina and pvt. ed "babe" heffron went back into bastogne to scrounge up some medical supplies. at the aid station spina got some of what he needed (the 101st was already running low on medical supplies, a major problem). the two e company men grabbed a hot meal, and although they hated to leave the stove, with darkness coming on, they set out for the line.
heffron suggested a shortcut across a wooded area. spina agreed. heffron led the way. suddenly he fell into a hole. there was a shout of surprise. then a voice called out from under heffron, "hinkle, hinkle, ist das dui"
heffron came barreling out of the foxhole and took off in the opposite direction, yelling "hinkle your ass, kraut!" he and spina got reoriented and finally found the e company cp.
(spina, who recalled the incident, concluded: "to this day every time i see babe, i ask him how hinkle is feeling or if he has seen hinkle lately.")
the medics were the most popular, respected, and appreciated men in the company. their weapons were first-aid kits,- their place on the line was wherever a man called out that he was wounded. lieutenant foley had special praise for pvt. eugene roe. "he was there when he was needed, and how he got 'there' you often wondered. he never received recognition for his bravery, his heroic servicing of the wounded. i recommended him for a silver star after a devastating firefight when his exploits were typically outstanding. maybe i didn't use the proper words and phrases, perhaps lieutenant dike didn't approve, or somewhere along the line it was cast aside. i don't know. i never knew except that if any man who struggled in the snow and the cold, in the many attacks through the open and through the woods, ever deserved such a medal, it was our medic, gene roe."
on december 20 what was left of the 1st battalion of the 506th and team desobry pulled back from noville and went into reserve. easy awaited an attack that did not come; the damage inflicted by 1st battalion was so great that the germans made their assaults on other sectors of the defensive perimeter. easy underwent artillery and mortar bombardments, but no infantry attack.
on december 21, it snowed, a soft, dry snow. it kept coming, 6 inches, 12 inches. the temperature fell to well below freezing, the wind came up, even in the woods. the men were colder than they had ever been in their lives. they had only their jump boots and battle dress with trench coats. no wool socks, no long underwear. runners went into bastogne and returned with flour sacks and bed sheets, which provided some warmth and camouflage. in the foxholes and on the outposts, men wrapped their bodies in blankets and their boots in burlap. the burlap soaked up the snow, boots became soggy, socks got wet, the cold penetrated right into the bones. shivering was as normal as breathing. the men looked like george washington's army at valley forge, except that they were getting fired upon, had no huts, and warming fires were out of the question.
col. ralph ingersoll, an intelligence officer with first army, described the penetrating cold: "riding through the ardennes, i wore woolen underwear, a woolen uniform, armored force combat overalls, a sweater, an armored force field jacket with elastic cuffs, a muffler, a heavy lined trenchcoat, two pairs of heavy woolen socks, and combat boots with galoshes over them—and i cannot remember ever being warm."1
1. ralph ingersoll, top secret (new york: harcourt brace, 1946).

for the men of easy, without decent socks and no galoshes, feet always cold and always wet, trench foot quickly became a problem. corporal carson remembered being taught that the way to prevent trench foot was to massage the feet. so he took off his boots and massaged his feet. a german shell came in and hit a tree over his foxhole. splinters tore up his foot and penetrated his thigh. he was evacuated back to bastogne.
at the hospital set up in the town, "i looked around and never saw so many wounded men. i called a medic over and said, 'hey, how come you got so many wounded people around here? aren't we evacuating any?' "

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"haven't you heard?" the medic replied. "i haven't heard a damn thing." "they've got us surrounded—the poor bastards." general mcauliffe saw to it the wounded had booze for comfort. a medic gave carson a bottle of creme de menthe. "i didn't even know what it was, but to this day i have liked creme de menthe." the luftwaffe bombed the town that night. carson remembered to get on his hands and knees for the concussion. he got sick. "thank god for that helmet. i had already had about half that creme de menthe. it was all green in my helmet."
for the most part, all the men of easy had to eat was k rations, and not enough of those had been distributed back at mourmelon. the company cooks tried to bring a hot meal up after darkness, but by the time they reached the men in the foxholes, the food was cold. mainly it consisted of white navy beans which, according to sergeant rader, "caused gastronomical outbursts that were something to behold." cook joe domingus found some shortening and cornmeal, which he turned into corn fritters, also stone cold by the time they arrived. the men mixed the lemonade packet in their k rations with snow to make a dessert.
on the line, the days were miserable, the nights worse. the shelling was not continuous, the machine-gun fire directed at the americans was sporadic, but snipers were active through the day. at night, the ominous silence would be broken by the nerve-racking hammering of enemy mortars, followed by cries from the wounded and calls to man the positions in preparation for an attack. then another ominous silence.
every two hours, the platoon sergeants would wake two men in a foxhole and lead them to the outpost (op) position, to relieve the men on duty. "the trip out to the op was always eerie," christenson remembered. "you eyed all silhouettes suspiciously, skeptical of any sound. reluctantly, you approach the op. the silhouettes of the men in their positions are not clear. . . . are they germans? the suspense is always the same . . . then finally you recognize an american helmet. feeling a little ridiculous, yet also relieved, you turn around and return to the main line, only to repeat the entire process in another two hours."
in the foxholes, the men tried to get some sleep, difficult to impossible given the cramped conditions (usually 6 feet by 2 feet by 3 or 4 feet deep, for two men). at least lying together allowed the men to exchange heat. heffron and pvt. al vittore did manage to get to sleep the second night out. heffron woke when vittore threw his heavy leg over his . when vittore started to rub heffron's chest, heffron gave him a shot with his elbow in his belly. vittore woke and demanded to know what the hell was going on. heffron started to give him hell in return; vittore grinned and said he had been dreaming about his wife.
"al," heffron said, "i can't help you, as i got combat boots, jump pants, and my trench coat on, and they are not coming off." in other foxholes, men talked to relieve the tension. sergeant rader and pvt. don hoobler came from the same town on the banks of the ohio river. "don and i would talk all night about home, our families, people and places, and what the hell were we doing in a predicament like this?" spina recalled discussing with his foxhole mate "politics, the world's problems, plus our own. wishing we had a drink or a hot meal, preferably in that order. we talked about what we were going to do when we got home, about a trip to paris in a couple of weeks, go to the follies. mainly we talked about going home."
sergeant toye, back from hospital, didn't like the silence at night between mortar attacks. to break it, he would sing. "i'll be seeing you" was his favorite. heffron told him to cut it, that the krauts would surely hear him. toye sang anyway. according to heffron, "joe was a hellu'va better soldier than singer."
sitting in front-line foxholes was bad, being on op was worse, going on combat patrol looking for a fight was the worst. but it had to be done. it was the inability of viii corps to patrol aggressively, due to insufficient manpower, that had led to the december 16 surprise when the germans attacked in far greater force than anyone anticipated.
on december 21 lieutenant peacock sent sergeant martin to the various foxholes of 1st platoon. at each one holding a sergeant or a corporal, martin announced, "i want all n.c.o.s back at the platoon cp—now."
the men gathered. lieutenant peacock, the platoon leader, as tense as ever, stopped the grumbling: "at ease. battalion wants a platoon to go on a combat patrol, and we have been elected to be that platoon." he paused. no one spoke. peacock went on, "we know the krauts are in the woods in front of our mlr, but we don't know how many, or where their mlr or ops are located. it's our job to acquire that information, and to capture some prisoners, if possible."
questions came in a torrent. "what's the plan of attack?" sergeant christenson, leader of 1st squad, wanted to know.
"how will the squads be positioned?" asked sergeant muck of the mortar squad.
"what happens when we lose contact in those woods?" wondered 2nd squad leader sergeant randleman.
peacock did not have any ready answers. "you'll know more of what you're going to do when we reach the woods," was all he could think to say. son of a bitch, christenson thought to himself. this is going to be another snafu operation, with not enough information to fill a peapod.
"we move out at 1300 hours," peacock concluded.
damn, was christenson's thought. we are being led by mister indecision himself; to infiltrate into the german lines without a good plan is a tremendous, bungling, tactical error. but when he met with his squad, he kept his thoughts to himself. he told the men to draw ammunition and be ready to jump off at 1300.
at 1200, 1st platoon fell back a few meters from the mlr and gathered around father maloney, who had his communion set out. he announced that he was giving a general absolution. after the men who wanted one received their communion wafer, he wished them "good luck."
just before 1300, the platoon assembled in the woods behind the mlr. peacock looked to christenson "like a frightened rabbit." he had no special orders to give, offered no clarification about a plan. he just announced, "all right, men, let's move out."
the platoon moved to the extreme right flank of the battalion, along the railroad tracks. it moved through d company's position and began advancing toward the germans, the tracks to the right, the woods to the left. it proceeded slowly, moving in column, stopping frequently. some 200 meters beyond the mlr, peacock called the n.c.o.s forward. he gave his orders: each squad would form a column of twos, abreast of one another, send out two scouts on point, and proceed into the woods until contact was made.
the platoon plunged into the woods. immediately, the columns lost touch with each other, the squads lost touch with their scouts. the snow was soft, not crunchy, and the silence complete. it was broken by a short burst from a german machine-gun. pvt. john julian, a scout for 2nd squad, was hit in the neck and pvt. james welling, scouting for 3rd squad, was also hit.
the machine-gunners from easy set up their weapons and prepared to return fire. pvt. robert burr smith of 1st squad opened up with a long burst in the direction of the german fire base. when he paused, the germans let loose another burst of their own. christenson shouted for martin. no answer. for randle-man. no answer. for peacock. no answer. only more german fire.
the 1st platoon's being decimated! christenson thought. he shouted again. bull randleman came through the woods to answer. "have you seen martin or peacock?" randleman had not. another burst of machine-gun fire cut through the trees.
"we have got to make a move," randleman said. he joined chris in calling for martin. no answer. "let's get the hell out of here," chris suggested. bull agreed. they called out the orders to their men and fell back to the railroad. there they met martin, peacock, and the remainder of the platoon.
the patrol had not been a great success. 1st platoon had uncovered the german mlr and discovered that the german ops were thinly manned and stretched out, but it had lost one man killed (julian) and one wounded and failed to bring in a prisoner. it spent the night shivering in the foxholes, eating cold beans and fritters, wondering if the weather would ever clear so that the 101st could be resupplied by air.

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the next couple of days were about the same. easy sent out patrols, the germans sent out patrols. occasional mortar attacks. sporadic machine-gun fire. bitter cold. inadequate medical supplies. no hot food. not enough food. constant shivering was burning off energy that was not being replaced. for the privates, not enough sleep. for the n.c.o.s, almost no sleep. this was survival time, and reactions were slow due to the near-frozen limbs. shell bursts in the trees sent splinters, limbs, trunks, and metal showering down on the foxholes. to protect themselves, the men tried to cover their holes with logs, but not having axes made it a difficult task. one man solved the problem by putting two or three german "stiffs" over the top.
most maddening was the inability of the american artillery to respond to german shelling or to disrupt german activity. easy's op men would watch with envy as german trucks and tanks moved back and forth behind the german line, bringing in the shells and food that the americans so badly missed. back in bastogne, the americans had plenty of guns, including 105 and 155 mm howitzers. they had been active the first few days of the siege, firing in a complete circle at all german attempts to break through the mlr. but by the twenty-third they were almost out of ammunition. winters recalled being told that the single artillery piece covering the foy-bastogne road—his left flank— was down to three rounds. they were being saved for antitank purposes in the event of a german panzer attack down that road. in other words, no artillery support for easy or 2nd battalion. this at a time when the men of the company were down to six rounds per mortar, one bandolier for each rifleman, and one box of machine-gun ammo per gun.
that day, however, the snow stopped, and the sky cleared. c-47s dropped supplies, medicine, food, ammunition. american artillery got back into action, curtailing german daytime activity, boosting morale on the mlr. k rations were distributed, along with ammo. but the 30-caliber for the light machine-guns and m-1s was insufficient to the need, and the 24,406 k rations were enough for only a day or so. not enough blankets had been dropped to insure that every man had one.
the afternoon of december 23, 2nd lt. edward shames prepared to lead 3rd platoon on a patrol. "ok, shifty, let's go," he said to cpl. darrell powers, a dependable man who was the best shot in the company.
"sir, i can't go. i cannot go," powers replied. "what the hell do you mean? that's a court-martial offense." "do what you want with me," powers answered, indicating that he was not moving.
powers had done everything asked of him up to this moment, and more. shames thought, it would be asinine of me to say, "ok, buddy, i'm going to get you on a court-martial." instead he said, "corporal, rest up. i'll see you when we get back."
shames (who stayed in the army reserves and made colonel) felt forty-seven years later that it was one of the best decisions he ever made. he knew powers had broken, but thought he would recover. he knew that every man had his breaking point, that "there but for the grace of god go i. we all knew we were one firefight, one patrol, one tree burst, one 88 mm from the same end." he believed that "if i had not had a command of these people, i would have broken too, but the fact that i had something to hang onto, to know that these people depended on me, carried me through more than anything else."
in an interview in 1990, powers described his feelings: "i never, never really got discouraged the whole time i was in service until that day. and one place, one time up there, the germans were shooting and shelling, and lieutenant shames wanted a patrol, and this one particular time i really didn't care whether to get in a foxhole to get out of the way or not, or go on a patrol, or anything. you see, you have nothing to look forward to. the next day is going to be the same or worse."
officers watched for signs of breaking. when winters sensed that private liebgott was on the edge, he brought him back to battalion cp to be his runner. this gave liebgott a chance to rest up and get away from the tension of the mlr. "just being back 50 yards off the front line made a tremendous difference in the tension," winters wrote.
the temptation to stay put when a patrol went out was very strong; even stronger was the temptation to report back at the aid station with trench foot or frozen feet and hands or an extreme case of diarrhea. "if all the men who had a legitimate reason to leave the mlr and go back to the aid station in bastogne had taken advantage of their situation," winters wrote, "there just would not have been a front line. it would have been a line of outposts."
the temptation to get out altogether via a self-inflicted wound was also strong. it did not get light until 0800. it got dark at 1600. during the sixteen hours of night, out in those frozen foxholes (which actually shrank as the night went on and the ground froze and expanded), it was impossible to keep out of the mind the thought of how easy it would be to shoot a round into a foot. a little pain—not much in a foot so cold it could not be felt anyway—and then transport back to bastogne, a warm aid station, a hot meal, a bed, escape.
no man from easy gave in to that temptation that every one of them felt. one man did take off his boots and socks to get frostbite and thus a ticket out of there. but for the others, they would take a legitimate way out or none. winters recalled, "when a man was hit hard enough for evacuation, he was usually very happy, and we were happy for him—he had a ticket out to the hospital, or even a ticket home—alive.
"when a man was killed—he looked 'so peaceful.' his suffering was over."
at first light on christmas eve morning, winters inspected his mlr. he walked past corporal gordon, "his head wrapped up in a big towel, with his helmet sitting on top. walter sat on the edge of his foxhole behind his light machine-gun. he looked like he was frozen stiff, staring blankly straight ahead at the woods. i stopped and looked back at him, and it suddenly struck me, 'damn! gordon's matured! he's a man!' "
a half hour later, at 0830, gordon brewed himself a cup of coffee. he kept coffee grounds in his hand grenade canister, "and i'd melted the snow with my little gas stove, and i'd brewed up this lovely cup of coffee." as he started to sip it, the outposts came in with word that a german force was attempting to infiltrate easy's lines. his squad leader, sgt. buck taylor, told him to "get on that machine-gun."
gordon brushed snow from his weapon and the ammo box adjacent to the gun, telling his assistant, pvt. stephen grodzki, to look sharp, pay attention to detail. a shot from a german rifleman rang out. the bullet hit gordon in the left shoulder and exited from the right shoulder. it had brushed his spinal column; he was paralyzed from the neck down.
he slid to the bottom of his foxhole. "the canteen cup followed me and the hot liquid spilled in my lap. i can see the steam rising upward to this very day."
taylor and earl mcclung went looking for the sniper who had shot gordon. they found and killed him. shifty powers was in the next foxhole. as shames had hoped would happen, he had recovered completely. shifty was from virginia, a mountain man, part indian. he had spent countless hours as a youth hunting squirrels. he could sense the least little movement in a woods. he spotted a german in a tree, raised his m-l, and killed the man.
paul rogers, gordon's best friend, jim alley and another member of the 3rd platoon rushed over to gordon. they hauled him out of the hole and dragged him back into the woods, in gordon's words "as a gladiator was dragged from the arena." in a sheltered area, they stretched him out to examine him. medic roe came up, took a quick look, and declared that it was serious. roe gave gordon morphine and prepared to give plasma.
sergeant lipton came over to see what he could do. "walter's face was ashen and his eyes closed," lipton recalled. "he looked more dead than alive." in the extreme cold, it seemed to lipton that the plasma was flowing too slowly, so he took the bottle from roe and put it under his arm inside his clothes to warm it up.
"as i looked down at walter's face he suddenly opened his eyes. 'walter, how do you feel?' i asked. 'lipton,' he said in a surprisingly strong voice, 'you're standing on my hand.' i jumped back, looking down, and he was right. i had been standing on his hand." a jeep, summoned by radio, came up and evacuated gordon to the aid station.
the german attack continued, intensified, was finally thrown back with heavy losses, thanks to a combination of easy's rifle and machine-gun fire, mortars, and grenades, ably assisted by artillery. lipton later counted thirty-eight dead german bodies in front of the woods. lieutenant welsh was hit and evacuated.
on the afternoon of christmas eve, the men received general mcauliffe's christmas greetings. "what's merry about all this, you ask?" was the opening line. "just this: we have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the north, east, south and west. we have identifications from four german panzer divisions, two german infantry divisions and one german parachute division. . . . the germans surround us, their radios blare our doom. their commander demanded our surrender in the following impudent arrogance." (there followed the four paragraph message "to the u.s.a. commander of the encircled town of bastogne" from "the german commander," demanding an "honorable surrender to save the encircled u.s.a. troops from total annihilation," dated december 22.)

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mcauliffe's message continued: "the german commander received the following reply: '22 december 1944. to the german commander: nuts! the american commander.'
"we are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy christmas present and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms are truly making for ourselves a merry christmas. a. c. mcauliffe, commanding."2
2. rapport and northwood, rendezvous with destiny, 545.

the men at the front were not as upbeat as general mcauliffe. they had cold white beans for their christmas eve dinner, while the division staff had a turkey dinner, served on a table with a tablecloth, a small christmas tree, knives and forks and plates.3
3. there is a photograph on p. 549 of rendezvous with destiny of that dinner. the officers are looking appropriately glum, but what the men of easy bring to my attention is the luxurious (everything is relative, they admit) surroundings. one of those staff officers was lt. col. (later lt. gen.) harry w. o. kinnard. twenty years later, in an interview about the battle of the bulge, kinnard said, "we never felt we would be overrun. we were beating back everything they threw at us. we had the houses, and were warm. they were outside the town, in the snow and cold." every surviving member of e company has sent me a copy of that newspaper story, with caustic comments, the mildest of which was, "what battle was he in?"
winters' dinner that night consisted of "five white beans and a cup of cold broth."

out on the mlr, sergeant rader was feeling terrible about having to put men out on op duty on christmas eve. his childhood buddy, cpl. don hoobler, suggested, "why don't we take that post tonight and just allow the men to sleep. we can lay it off as a kind of christmas present to the men." rader agreed.
when darkness fell, they moved out to the op. it was miserably cold, a biting wind taking the wind-chill factor well below zero. "as the night wore on, we talked of our homes," rader remembered, "our families, and how they were spending their christmas eve. don felt sure all of them were in church praying for us."
on christmas day, the germans attacked again, but fortunately for e company on the other side of bastogne. the following day, patton's third army, spearheaded by lt. col. creighton abrams of the 37th tank battalion, broke through the german lines. the 101st was no longer surrounded; it now had ground communications with the american supply dumps. soon trucks were bringing in adequate supplies of food, medicine, and ammunition. the wounded were evacuated to the rear.
general taylor returned. he inspected the front lines, according to winters, "very briskly. his instructions before leaving us were, 'watch those woods in front of you!' what the hell did he think we had been doing while he was in washington?"
(winters has a thing about taylor. in one interview he remarked, "and now you have general taylor coming back from his christmas vacation in washington. ..." i interrupted to say, "that's not quite fair." "isn't it?" "well, he was ordered back to testify. ..." winters cut me off: "i don't want to be fair.")
the breaking of the siege brought the first newspapers from the outside world. the men of the 101st learned that they had become a legend even as the battle continued. as the division history put it, the legend "was aided by the universality of the press and radio, of ten thousand daily maps showing one spot holding out inside the rolling tide of the worst american military debacle of modern times. it was aided by a worried nation's grasping for encouragement and hope; for days it was the one encouraging sight that met their eyes each morning. and the war department, earlier than was its practice, identified the division inside the town, so even before their bloody month in the town was up, to the world the 101st became the battered bastards of the bastion of bastogne. the elements of drama were there— courage in the midst of surrounding panic and defeat; courage and grim humor in the midst of physical suffering, cold, and near-fatal shortages; a surrender demand and a four-letter-word rebuttal; and a real comradeship. . . . courage and comradeship combined to develop a team that the germans couldn't whip."4
4. rapport and northwood, rendezvous with destiny, 586.

of course, combat command b of the 10th armored division was also in bastogne, but it was not identified in the press.
and of course the 82nd airborne fought as costly and desperate a fight on the northern shoulder of the bulge, a fight that was at least as significant as the one at bastogne. but it was not surrounded and never got the publicity the 101st received.
the 101st still had a complaint. as the story of the battle of the bulge is told today, it is one of george fatten and his third army coming to the rescue of the encircled 101st, like the cavalry come to save the settlers in their wagon circle. no member of the 101st has ever agreed that the division needed to be rescued!
with the encirclement broken, the men of the 101st expected to return to mourmelon to bask in the allied world's adulation and perhaps to celebrate the new year in paris. but the heroic stand at bastogne had been a defensive action; to win the war the allies were going to have to resume their offensive; the germans had come out of their fixed positions in the west wall and made themselves vulnerable; eisenhower wanted to seize the opportunity. but his problem at the end of december was the same as it had been in the middle of the month, a manpower shortage. the stark truth was that the germans outnumbered the allies on the western front. the united states had not raised enough infantry divisions to fight a two-front war. this was a consequence of the prewar decision by the government to be lavish with deferments for industrial and farm labor, and to refrain from drafting fathers. there was also a shortage of artillery shells, brought on by a decision in september—when it seemed the war in europe would be over in a matter of weeks—to lower production of shells on the industrial priority list. to go over to a general offensive, as he had decided to do, ike needed the 101st and 82nd in the line.
it was a question of timing. eisenhower wanted to attack even before new year's eve, but monty, commanding the forces (all american) on the northern shoulder of the bulge, stalled and shivered and made excuses, so it did not happen.
for easy, that meant staying in the line. conditions improved, somewhat—the men got overshoes and long underwear and sometimes hot food. but the cold continued, the snow did not go away, the germans hit the company with mortar and artillery fire daily, patrols had to be mounted, german patrols had to be turned back.
on december 29, easy was in the same woods it had occupied for nine days. with the clear weather, the men on op duty could see foy below them and noville across open fields and along the road about 2 kilometers to the north.
shifty powers came in from an op to report to 1st sergeant lipton. "sergeant," he said, "there's a tree up there toward noville that wasn't there yesterday." powers had no binoculars, but lipton did. looking through them, lipton could not see anything unusual, even after powers pinpointed the spot for him.
one reason lipton had trouble was that the object was not an isolated tree,- there were a number of trees along the road in that area. lipton expressed some doubts, but powers insisted it had not been there the previous day. lipton studied the spot with his binoculars. he saw some movement near the tree and then more movement under other trees around it. then he saw gun barrels—88s by their appearance, as they were elevated and 88s were the basic german antiaircraft weapon as well as ground artillery piece. lipton realized that the germans were putting an antiaircraft battery in among the trees, and had put up the tree powers spotted as part of their camouflage.
lipton put in a call for a forward artillery observer. when he arrived, he saw what powers and lipton had seen. he got on the radio, talking to a battery of 105 mm back in bastogne. when he described the target he had no trouble getting approval for full battery fire, despite the short supply of artillery ammunition.
to zero in on the target, the observer called for a round on a position he could locate on his map, about 300 meters to the right of the trees. one gun fired and hit the target. then he shifted the aim 300 meters to the left and called for all the battery's guns to lay in on the same azimuth and range. when he got a report that all was ready, he had his guns fire for effect, several rounds from each gun.
shells started exploding all around the german position. lip-ton watched through his binoculars as the germans scrambled to get out of there, salvaging what they could of their guns, helping wounded to the rear. within an hour the place was deserted.
"it all happened," lipton summed up, "because shifty saw a tree almost a mile away that hadn't been there the day before."
the german 88 battery had been going into place as a part of renewed pressure the germans were putting on bastogne. having failed in their original plan to get across the meuse river, the germans needed bastogne and its road net to hold their position in the bulge and to be prepared for withdrawal. they launched furious attacks against the narrow corridor leading into the town from the south, and increased the pressure all around. by the end of the year eight german divisions, including three ss panzer divisions, were fighting in the bastogne area. patton's third army was attacking north, toward bastogne; u.s. first army, under gen. courtney hodges (who was under monty at this time) was scheduled to begin an attack south "sometime soon." if they linked up in time, they would cut off the germans in the bulge salient. if the germans could stop patton's thrust, and take bastogne, they would have the road net that would enable them to escape.
that was the situation on new year's eve. at midnight, to celebrate the coming of the year of victory and to demonstrate how much things had changed in bastogne in the past few days, every gun in bastogne and every mortar piece on the mlr joined in a serenade of high explosives hurled at the germans.
corporal gordon, along with more than a dozen other wounded easy men, was evacuated to the rear. another seven men from the company lay buried in shallow graves in the woods. easy had put 121 officers and men on the trucks back in mourmelon twelve days earlier. its fighting strength was down to less than 100.

yuemuping

gordon was taken by ambulance to sedan, then flown to england and on to a hospital in wales. he was heavily sedated, paralyzed, hallucinating. he was placed in a plaster cast from waist to the top of his head; only his face was left unplastered. but the cast that kept him immobile also prevented treatment of the wounds made by the bullet entering and exiting his back, so it was removed and replaced by the device known as the crutchfield tongs. the apparatus was applied by boring two holes in the crown of his head, then inserting steel tongs into the holes and clamping them into place. a line attached through pulleys provided traction while preventing any movement without the need for a cast. he stayed in that position, flat on his back gazing up at the ceiling, for six weeks. slowly he began to have some feeling in his extremities.
the doctor, maj. m. l. stadium, told him that had the bullet varied '/z inch in one direction, it would have missed him; had it varied that much in the other direction, the wound would have been fatal. gordon considered himself to be "fortunate, very fortunate. a million dollar wound." only a man who had been in the front line at bastogne could describe such a wound in such words.
12 the breaking point *
bastogne
january 1-13,1945
during the siege easy had been on the defensive, taking it. the greatest disadvantage to being on the defensive in the woods was that the pines gave an optimum tree burst to artillery shells. but in other ways being on the defensive had some decided advantages. by new year's day, the snow was a foot deep in some places, frozen on top, slippery. even the shortest infantry movements were made under the most trying conditions. to advance, a man had to flounder through the snow, bending and squirming to avoid knocking the snow off the branches and revealing his position. visibility on the ground was limited to a few meters. an attacker had little contact with the men on his left and right, and he could not see a machine-gun position or a foxhole until he was almost on top of it. there were no roads, houses, or landmarks in the woods, so an advancing force would report its position by radio only by approximation. squads on the attack had to move on compass bearings until they bumped into some, friend or enemy. ammunition boxes for resupply were hand-carried to the foxholes, as always, but in this case by men who had no clear idea of direction.
attacking in the cleared grazing fields was equally daunting. there was only one road, noville-foy-bastogne, and it was ice-coated on top, with black ice under the snow. german 88s were zeroed in on the road, which was also mined. but the alternative to attacking down the road was to come cross-country over the fields, which offered no concealment.
the cultivated woods that had been home to easy for twelve days were called the bois jacques. they extended to easy's right (east) a couple of kilometers, to the railroad track and beyond. to its front (north) an open field sloped down to the village of foy. the germans held the bois jacques to the northeast. their position was a wedge into the 101st lines; it was the closest they were anywhere to bastogne, only 3 kilometers away. before the 101st could launch any general offensive, the germans had to be driven from the bois jacques and foy taken. the next objective would be the high ground around noville.
new year's day was quiet, but that evening division assigned 2nd battalion of the 506th the task of attacking and clearing out the bois jacques. that night, a few german planes dropped bombs on e company. sergeant toye was hit by a piece of shrapnel on his wrist. this was his third wound; he had been hit in normandy and then again in holland. he was a walking wounded; the medic sent him back to the aid station to get patched up. before leaving, toye checked in with sergeant malarkey, who said in parting, "you lucky s.o.b!"
to carry out the attack, at first light on january 2 the battalion shifted to its right, to the railroad track; 1st battalion, in regimental reserve, moved into 2nd battalion's old position. second battalion formed skirmish lines on the foy-bizory road, looking to the northeast into the dense woods, waiting for the order to move out. (this was the same place from which 1st platoon had moved out on patrol on december 22.) a battalion of the 501st was on 2nd battalion's right. it would be attacking in support.
winters called out the command, "move out!" the men began the advance. moving in those dense woods was an exhausting process under the best of circumstances, completely so when carrying rifles, machine-guns, mortars, grenades, knives, ammunition, and rations. the struggle to get through caused the to sweat profusely, which was not a problem until one stopped; after a few minutes the wet underclothing could chill the to the bone.
immediately upon plunging into the woods, contact between platoons, even squads, sometimes even man to man, was lost. the snow and trees absorbed the noise so that even the clank of equipment, a sign that the men on each side were advancing with you, was absent. the sense of isolation coupled with the feeling of tension to create a fearful anticipation of the inevitable enemy response.
machine-gun fire from directly in front hit e company. simultaneously, supporting american artillery began to whine over the heads of the men. immediately german artillery fired back, but not as counterbattery; the german shells were landing in and on the paratroopers. as quickly as it started, the firing ceased. in sergeant christenson's analysis, "the denseness of the woods was a bewilderment and confusion to the krauts, whose visibility was no better than ours. had they known that two battalions were moving toward their position in giant skirmish lines, the shelling and machine-gun fire would have been much more intense."
the advance resumed. again machine-gun fire broke out, as the lead elements began to encounter the german ops. american artillery resumed firing, salvo after salvo. german counterfire became intense. cries of "i'm hit!" and shouts for medics could be heard all along the line. still the advance continued. men threw grenades and fired their rifles at germans retreating through the woods.
after covering between 800 and 900 meters (easy company men refer to this as the "1,000 yard attack"), the attackers came to a logging road through the woods. there most of them halted, but some men penetrated a few meters into the woods on the other side to make certain no germans were hiding there. christenson was standing on the road with a few of his 1st platoon men when suddenly, to the right, there was the most improbable sight. a german soldier on horseback came galloping into view. as the americans saw him, he saw them. he whirled the horse around and began to retreat. corporal hoobler quickly got off three shots, smiled and jumped into the air, shouting, "i got him! i got him!" christenson found himself having the odd thought that he had been hoping the horseman would make his getaway.
from over to the left, in the woods across the road, pvt. ralph trapazano called out, "hey, chris, i've got a kraut." christenson moved down in his direction, went 5 meters past his position, and cut into the woods, holding his m-1 ready to fire with safety off. he approached the german from his right side. "there stood a very strong looking s.s. trooper; camouflage jacket on, submachine-gun in his left hand, his arms hanging straight down his sides. but his weapon was pointed at trap. trap was down in a prone position with his m-l pointed at the kraut's chest. there wasn't a hint of fear on the s.s. trooper's face."
christenson pointed his m-l at the german's chest and told him, in his high school german, to drop his weapon. the german looked in christenson's eyes and saw he meant to shoot, looked at his rifle and sensed that christenson was taking up the slack on the trigger. he dropped his submachine-gun and raised his hands.
christenson told trapazano, "the next time you are confronted with an arrogant son-of-a-bitch like this, shoot the bastard."
so far easy had been lucky. to its right the 501st had been attacked while it was attacking. the 26th ss panzer grenadier regiment of the 12th ss division (hitlerjugend) hit with tanks, artillery, and infantry, inflicting heavy loss. on easy's left flank, tanks and infantry from the 9th ss division hit the other companies of the 502nd."but in easy's sector, things were relatively quiet.
darkness was coming on. the word went down the line to dig in. the men were harassed by sporadic machine-gun fire and occasional artillery bursts, which prompted them to cut branches from the nearest source to cover their foxholes. this was dangerous and difficult, because it meant exposure. when machine-gun fire or shell fire came in, it was a desperate mad dash for the foxhole, with adrenalin racing through the . when the foxhole sanctuary was complete, a man was exhausted, his clothes and drenched with sweat. now he sat, got cold, then colder, then began uncontrollable shivering. "when you were convinced that your could stand no more," christenson commented, "you found out that it could."
hoobler was in a state of exhilaration after shooting a man on horseback. he moved from one position to another, hands in his pockets, batting the breeze with anyone who would talk. in his right hand pocket he had a luger he had picked up on the battlefield. a shot rang out. he had accidentally fired the luger. the bullet went through his right thigh, severing the main artery. in great pain, hoobler rolled about the ground, crying out for help. private holland, the 1st platoon medic, tried to bandage the wound. two men carried hoobler back to the aid station, but he died shortly after arrival.

yuemuping

it was a severely cold night that never seemed to end. dawn came slowly. there was no firing. sergeant martin came walking down 1st platoon lines. although his reputation was that he seldom raised his voice and never gave orders in a harsh tone, this time he said gruffly, biting off the words, "i want all the 1st platoon noncoms at the platoon cp in ten minutes."
sergeants rader, randleman, muck, and christenson, and cpls. robert marsh and thomas mccreary gathered at the cp. martin suggested that they sit down. lts. stirling horner, peacock, and foley were there. horner spoke first: "your platoon commander, lieutenant peacock, has been awarded a thirty-day furlough to the states and he leaves today." he explained that the pr man at division hq thought it would be a great idea to send one officer from each regiment involved in the heroic defense of bastogne to the states for a war bond drive and other publicity purposes. colonel sink decided to make the selection by drawing lots. captain nixon won, peacock came in second in the 506th. nixon said he had already seen the states and didn't want to go, so peacock got the assignment.
everyone looked at peacock, who stammered, "i have been awarded this furlough, i feel certain, because of the great job you men did in holland and here, and the only thing i can say is thanks."
sergeant mccreary jumped up, ran to peacock, and started pumping his hand, saying, "boy, am i glad to hear you're going home, lieutenant! that's the best news we've had since we left mourmelon."
peacock, completely misunderstanding, blushed. he said he felt overwhelmed, that praise from one of the men was the highest praise. the sergeants smiled at each other. they were feeling as happy to see peacock going as he was to be going. the noncoms felt they had carried his load throughout holland and the ardennes. "no one tried harder than peacock," christenson declared, "but it was a job he was not cut out for."
peacock announced that lieutenant foley was taking command of the platoon. then with a cheery "good luck to you all," he was gone.
as peacock left, father john maloney brought joe toye back from the aid station in bastogne in his jeep. he dropped toye off by the road. toye started walking across the field toward the front line. winters saw him, his arm in a sling, heading back toward the front.
"where are you going?" winters asked. "you don't have to go back to the line."
"i want to go back with the fellows," toye replied, and kept walking.
that afternoon, january 3, winters pulled 2nd and 3rd platoons, plus an attached bazooka team from the 10th armored, out of the advanced position. he left 1st platoon, temporarily attached to d company, which like most of the companies in the 101st was down to 50 percent or less of authorized strength and needed help to maintain the mlr. second and 3rd platoons began hiking back to their old position in the section of the woods overlooking foy.
it was about 1530. the lead units decided to take a shortcut across the open field to get to the foxholes before dark. the other units followed. the germans saw them.
when the men ducked into the woods, they noticed immediately that the germans had zeroed artillery in on the position. there were shell holes and branches from tree-bursts all around the foxholes. the shell holes were big, indicating heavy artillery, probably 170 mm. no one had to give an order; every man went to work at once to strengthen the cover of his foxhole.
sergeant lipton grabbed an ax and ran over to the nearest small trees, about 50 meters beyond his foxhole. he heard german guns open in the distance. there was not enough time to get back to his foxhole, so he jumped into a small open hole someone had started to dig and then abandoned. it was so shallow that even when lying flat in it, lipton's head from his nose up was above ground. so he saw the first shells bursting in the trees.
the sound was deafening and terrifying. the ground rocked and pitched as in an earthquake. the men from the bazooka team had no foxholes; two of them were killed immediately, a number of others wounded.
sgt. joe toye was in the open, shouting orders to his men to take cover. "they always said if you can hear the shells, you'll be o.k.," he recalled. "i did not hear the shell." it exploded just above him. shrapnel all but tore off his right leg and hit him in the stomach, chest, and both arms. (the shrapnel in his chest area was later removed by two separate operations, taking it out from the back.)
as suddenly as it began, the shelling stopped. it had been the worst shelling easy had endured in the war. all through the woods men were calling out for a medic. lipton ran back to his foxhole to get his rifle, expecting an infantry attack. he heard someone moaning in the next foxhole; a tree 16 inches in diameter had fallen over it. lipton tried to move the tree, but could not. help arrived. the men dug around the tree, and pvt. shep howell came out grinning.
toye yelled for help; he wanted someone to drag him into his foxhole. sergeant guarnere got to him first and began dragging him over the ground.
the shelling resumed. the germans had planned well. as they anticipated, the pause had brought men out of the foxholes to help the wounded. a shell burst over guarnere's head. shrapnel tore into his right leg, mangling it. after a few minutes, the shelling ceased.
lipton came out of his foxhole. lieutenant dike called out to him. "i can still hear him with that deep voice of his," lipton recalled. "he was about 25 yards away, without his helmet or a weapon. 'sergeant lipton,' he yelled to me, 'you get things organized here, and i'll go for help.' and with that he left."
lipton began rounding up the men who had not been hit. "some of them were close to breaking, some were amazingly calm." he sent some to tend to the wounded, others to organize to receive the infantry attack he was sure was coming. then he went to check on guarnere and toye.
lipton looked down at guarnere. guarnere looked up and said, "lip, they got guarnere this time." malarkey joined them. guarnere and toye, as he recalled, were conscious and calm, no screaming or yelling. "joe says, 'give me a cigarette, malark.' and i lit the cigarette for him."
there was a pause in our interview. i urged him to go on. "i don't want to talk about it," malarkey said. another pause, and then he continued: "joe smoked, looked at me, and asked, 'jesus, malark, what does a man have to do to get killed around here?' " stretcher bearers got to guarnere first. as he was being carried away he called out to toye, "i told you i'd get back to the states before you!"
2o6
the breaking point
lt. buck compton commanded 2nd platoon. he was very close to his men, too close in the opinion of the officers. "compton was a close friend of mine," malarkey said. "he didn't like the status symbol in the army. he was more friendly with enlisted men than he ever was with officers." he was especially close to guarnere and toye.
when he came out of his foxhole, compton saw carnage all around him. the nearest wounded were his friends guarnere and toye, their legs dangling from their bodies, their blood turning the snow bright red all around them.
compton started running to the rear, shouting for medics, or help of some kind. he finally calmed down at the aid station; it was found he had a severe case of trench foot. he was evacuated.
compton had won a silver star at brecourt manor on june 6, 1944. he had been wounded later in normandy, and again in holland. he had stood up to everything the germans had thrown at him from december 17 to january 3. but the sight of his platoon being decimated, of his two friends torn into pieces, unnerved him.
peacock gone, dike-taking a walk, compton gone, one replacement lieutenant who had turned himself in to the aid station with trench foot (which by this time almost every member of the company had) and another who was suspected of shooting himself in the hand—the battalion commander had to be concerned with the problem of the breaking point. winters related his feelings in an interview: "i had reached that stage in bastogne where i knew i was going to get it. sooner or later, i'm gonna get it. i just hope the hell it isn't too bad. but there never was a fear in me that i was gonna break. i just felt that i was going to be hit sooner or later. but as far as the breaking point, no."
after a reflective pause, he went on, "but you don't see people getting hit around you every day, every day, every day, continuing on and on, and—not knowing how long this was going to go on. is this going to go on forever? am i ever going to see home again?"
for the officer, he continued, with the additional burden of making decisions constantly, under pressure, when there had been a deprivation of sleep and inadequate food, it was no wonder men broke.
bastogne, january 1-13, 1945
2o7
it was the policy of the u.s. army to keep its rifle companies on the line for long periods, continuously in the case of the companies in infantry divisions, making up losses by individual replacement. this meant that replacements went into combat not with the men they had trained and shipped overseas with, but with strangers. it also meant the veteran could look forward to a release from the dangers threatening him only through death or serious wound. this created a situation of endlessness and hopelessness, as winters indicated.
combat is a topsy-turvy world. perfect strangers are going to great lengths to kill you; if they succeed, far from being punished for taking life, they will be rewarded, honored, celebrated. in combat, men stay underground in daylight and do their work in the dark. good health is a curse; trench foot, pneumonia, severe uncontrollable diarrhea, a broken leg are priceless gifts.
there is a limit to how long a man can function effectively in this topsy-turvy world. for some, mental breakdown comes early; army psychiatrists found that in normandy between 10 and 20 percent of the men in rifle companies suffered some form of mental disorder during the first week, and either fled or had to be taken out of the line (many, of course, returned to their units later). for others, visible breakdown never occurs, but nevertheless effectiveness breaks down. the experiences of men in combat produces emotions stronger than civilians can know, emotions of terror, panic, anger, sorrow, bewilderment, helplessness, uselessness, and each of these feelings drained energy and mental stability.

yuemuping

"there is no such thing as 'getting used to combat,' " the army psychiatrists stated in an official report on combat exhaustion. "each moment of combat imposes a strain so great that men will break down in direct relation to the intensity and duration of their exposure . . . psychiatric casualties are as inevitable as gunshot and shrapnel wounds in warfare. . . . most men were ineffective after 180 or even 140 days. the general consensus was that a man reached his peak of effectiveness in the first 90 days of combat, that after that his efficiency began to fall off, and that he became steadily less valuable thereafter until he was completely useless."1
1. quoted in keegan, the face of battle, 335-36.

by january 3, 1945, easy company had spent twenty-three days on the front line in normandy, seventy-eight in holland, fifteen in belgium, a total of 116. statistically, the whole company was in danger of breaking down at any time.
there was no german infantry followup attack that night, nor in the morning. the medics cleared out the wounded. the bodies of the dead stayed out there, frozen, for several more days. lieutenant dike reappeared. things got back to normal.
on january 5, e company was pulled back to regimental reserve south of foy. there two men, the acting battalion commander and the 1st sergeant of e company, thought about the same problem, the officers of that company.
as winters put it, "i look at the junior officers and my company commanders and i grind my teeth. basically we had weak lieutenants. i didn't have faith in them. what the hell can i do about this?" he knew that if he were lucky enough to get some additional officers, they would be replacements just over from the states, after completing a hurry-up training program. as to the company commander, winters stated flatly: "dike was sent to us as a favorite protégé of some from division hq, and our hands were tied."- winters saw no quick solution. in the meantime, he decided, "in a pinch, talk to your sergeants."
his 1st sergeant wanted to talk. lipton asked for a private conversation. winters said to meet him in the woods behind battalion cp that night.
they met, and lipton expressed his concern about the company commander. he described dike's actions, or lack of them, with damning detail. he ended by saying, "lieutenant dike is going to get a lot of e company men killed."
winters listened intently, asked a few questions, kept his own counsel.
replacements came in. "i could not believe it," john martin confessed. "i could not believe that they were going to give us replacements and put us on the attack. i figured, jesus, they'll take us out of here and give us some clothes or something. but, no, they get you some replacements, and 'come on boys, let's go.' and then that's when we start attacking."
he was right. the woods form a u around foy, with the village smack in the middle. in the attack of january 3, the americans had taken control of the right hand portion of the u. next would come an attack on the left hand portion.
on january 9 the company participated in the clearing operation in the woods west of foy. resistance was light. the company reached its objective and dug in.
suddenly a shell burst in the trees, then another and another. they kept coming. cpl. george luz was caught out in the open. he began racing toward his foxhole. sergeant muck and pvt. alex penkala called out to him to jump in with them, but he decided to get to his own and with shell bursts all around, splinters and branches and whole trees coming down, made it and dived in.
lipton was sharing a foxhole with sgt. bob mann, the company hq radio man. the germans sent over some mail. a shell that was a dud hit just outside their foxhole. lipton looked at it. mann lighted a cigarette. lipton had never smoked, but he asked for one, and that night had his first cigarette.
luz went to check on muck and penkala, the men who had offered to share their foxhole with him. the hole had taken a direct hit. luz started digging frantically. he found some pieces of bodies and a part of a sleeping bag.
the 101st now held all the woods that encircled foy from the east, west, and south. but foy, down in its little valley, was not the objective; noville and the high ground was. general taylor had wanted to carry on the january 9 attack right into noville, but for that he needed tank support, and as the tanks could only operate on the road, he had to have foy. the village had already changed hands four times.
the 2nd battalion of the 506th got selected to take foy. it was pulled out of the line west of foy and put back in south of the village. winters picked easy to lead the assault. it was a simple, brutal operation. charge across an open, snow-covered field of some 200 meters in length down into the village, where every window could be a machine-gun post, where every german had brick-and-mortar protection, that was all there was to it. no subtlety, no maneuvers, just charge and get close enough to the enemy to use grenades to root them out of rooms. the key was to get across the field quickly. if the men pressed the attack, if the cover fire was heavy enough, it should be simple. if they paused, it could be costly.
division ordered the attack to kick off at 0900. winters did not like the timing. he argued for a first-light start, to reduce exposure, but was turned down. winters was watching as easy formed up for the attack. standing behind him was a platoon leader from dog company, 1st lt. ronald c. speirs.
speirs was an officer with a reputation. slim, fairly tall, dark hair, stern, ruggedly handsome, he cultivated the look of a leader, and acted it. one of his fellow d company junior officers, lt. torn gibson, described him as "a tough, aggressive, brave and resourceful rifle platoon leader." his nicknames were "sparky" (among his fellow officers) and "bloody" (with the enlisted). he had led a bayonet attack and won the silver star in normandy. there were stories. the rumor mill swirled around lieutenant speirs. no one ever saw "it" happen with his own eyes, but he knew someone who did. they may be just stories, but they were believed, or half-believed, by the men of e company.
one story was about the time in normandy when speirs had a major problem with drinking in his platoon. he put out a blanket order. no more wine. none. the next day he ran into a drunken noncom. he gave an order, the noncom back-talked him, and he took out his pistol and shot the man between the eyes. the conclusion to the story goes like this, "and he never had any trouble with drinking after that."
then there was the day in normandy when speirs was walking down a road by himself and passed a group of ten german p.o.w.s. they were under guard and were digging a roadside ditch. speirs stopped, broke out a pack of cigarettes, and gave one to each p.o.w. they were so appreciative he jumped into the ditch and gave them the whole pack. then he took out his lighter and gave each one a light. he stepped back up on the road and watched them inhale and chat.
suddenly and without warning he unslung the thompson 45-caliber submachine-gun he always carried and fired into the group. he continued raking back and forth until all the p.o.w.s were dead. the guard was stunned. speirs turned and walked away.
tom gibson, who related this story to me (i heard it from many other sources, although no one saw it happen), commented, "i firmly believe that only a combat soldier has the right to judge another combat soldier. only a rifle company combat soldier knows how hard it is to retain his sanity, to do his duty and to survive with some semblance of honor. you have to learn to forgive others, and yourself, for some of the things that are done." gibson said he had told the story often over the years, never naming names, but using it as an example of what can happen in war. he continued, "we all know war stories seem to have a life of their own. they have a way of growing, of being embellished. whether the details are precise or not there must be a kernel of truth for such a story to ever have been told the first time."
winters was not thinking about speirs and his reputation. he was watching easy company attack. speirs and other officers from the unengaged companies stood behind him. winters had placed the two machine-guns of hq section to provide covering fire over the open fields sloping away in front of them, about 200 meters across from the tree line to the town line.2
2. standing on the spot in 1991 with winters, lipton, and malarkey, when winters indicated that he had set up one machine-gun just there, pointing at my wife moira's feet, she looked down, bent over, and picked up a 30-caliber shell casing to hand to him. (the field had recently been plowed.)

yuemuping

there were some scattered trees and haystacks in the field.
lieutenant foley, who led 1st platoon on the attack, described the situation: "we knew that foy had not been tested the previous day or scouted last evening. in the days before we were well aware of the coming and going of trucks and tanks. we were witness to the many attacks and counterattacks that had taken place. we had seen f company get chopped up in their efforts to hold this spot. now they were commanded by a 2nd lieutenant. so the unknown was ahead."
the company moved out, line abreast. the covering fire opened up. there were only a few random rifle shots from the village. still, as winters put it, "it was tough going for the men through that snow in a skirmisher formation, but the line was keeping a good formation and moving at a good pace."
first platoon, on the left flank, came on an area with some cow pens and small outbuildings. foley had the shacks checked out. as the men from the platoon (only twenty-two of them) went to work, three germans were seen scrambling into a shack. foley had it surrounded, kicked the door in, then said in his best german, "come out with hands up!" no reply.
foley pulled the pin on a fragmentation grenade and tossed it in. after the explosion, the germans emerged, shaken and bleeding. one was a 1st lieutenant, the other two were sergeants. foley started questioning them about the whereabouts of other german troops. one of the sergeants reached his hand into his opened coat. another made a similar move. the third cried out, "dummkopf!"
one of foley's men cut the germans down with a burst from his submachine-gun. "we had no prisoners," foley commented, "but we had the concealed pistols." the platoon hurried to rejoin the others.
dike looked left and could not see his 1st platoon. his other two platoons were moving forward steadily. they were being fired on but had not taken any casualties. but dike was naked on his left, or so he thought. he made a disastrous decision, the kind of decision that gets men killed. he signaled for the 2nd and 3rd platoons to join company hq section behind two haystacks.
from winters' point of view: "suddenly the line stopped about 75 yards from the edge of the village. every hunkered down in the snow behind those stacks and stayed there for no apparent reason. i could not get any response from lieutenant dike on the radio. the company was a bunch of sitting ducks out there in the snow." he worried about how long he could keep up the suppressing fire.
first platoon caught up with the company, grouped behind the haystacks. foley came to dike for orders. dike didn't know what to do. foley insisted he had to do something; lipton and the other sergeants supported him strongly.
dike came up with a plan. it consisted of sending 1st platoon on a wide flanking movement to the left, to circle the village and launch an attack from the far side. meanwhile he would direct machine-gun and mortar fire from the haystacks. for that purpose, dike said he was keeping the platoon's mortar and machine-gun men with him, to participate in the suppressing fire. so eighteen riflemen of 1st platoon went out into the snow, to try to get into foy from the far side.
lieutenant foley and sergeant martin had only a few minutes to plan the route that would get them to an assault position.
they picked a path that provided, every 10 meters or so, a tree to hide behind. the line of trees went on into the distance.
one by one they took off. within minutes, snipers began to fire, cries for "medic!" went up and down the line. the platoon returned the fire, but without noticeable effect. foley went to the nearest wounded man. "this was smith from california. he moaned and groaned as i ripped open the aid kit and before i found his wound he began 'confessing.' imagine! and what he 'confessed' was that he and two other buddies had come across a px ration and taken it. this consisted of hershey bars and cigarettes! i told him that he wasn't dying as i cut open his pants leg, sprinkled on the sulfa and wrapped his leg."
martin told pvt. frank perconte to move behind another tree and start shooting into the buildings from there. "so frank goes over and gets behind a tree a little bigger than his head, but it wasn't quite big enough for his ass. and they shot him in the ass."
(when lipton saw perconte later in the day, he was lying in the snow in a pool of blood but was still conscious and strong. lipton asked, "perconte, how bad are you hit?" he grinned and replied, "lip, a beautiful wound, a beautiful wound.")
martin directed pvt. harold webb to a tree and told him where to fire. foley got on the radio. "we're held up by sniper fire. we can't spot the location. we've lost five men. can you locate? advise."
someone from company cp called back to say that the first haystack to foley's right could be the spot. foley came back, "rake that g —— d —— stack," even as his platoon began firing at it.
lieutenant dike, in lipton's judgment, had "fallen apart." he was frozen behind the haystacks, he had no plan, he didn't know what to do.
to the watching winters, that was obvious. "here he had every hunkered down in the snow and staying there for no apparent reason." winters was frustrated by his inability to raise dike on the radio. "get going!" he would call out. "keep going." no response. easy company was taking needless casualties. all it needed was the leadership push to get across the last open space and into town. but the leadership wasn't there.
winters grabbed an m-l and started to run across the field, headed for the stationary company and its pinned-down 1st platoon. he intended to take command, get those men moving. but as he ran down, he thought, geeze, i can't do this. i'm running this battalion. i can't commit myself. he turned and raced back. "and as i was coming up, there was speirs standing right in front of me. 'speirs! take over that company and relieve dike and take that attack on in.' "
speirs took off running. winters turned his attention to his job. lieutenant foley described the results: "winters commanded the machine-gunners to lay down a base of protective fire so that we [1st platoon] could finish off what we had started, and for the mortars to concentrate on those two haystacks. a grenade launcher let go with several rounds, and when that stack began to burn, the two snipers became casualties."
regiment put i company (twenty-five men strong) on the right, into the attack. but success or failure rested with e company. this was an ultimate test of the company. it had reached a low point. neither the officers nor the men were, on the average, up to the standards of the company that had jumped into normandy. none of the officers who led on d-day were with the company in 1945.. more than half the enlisted men were new. the core of the old company left was the n.c.o.s. they were toccoa men, and they had held the company together since dike took over in holland.
they lived in a state of high alert and sharp tension. they lived and soldiered and tried to suppress feelings, always there, feelings that john keegan points out are the products "of some of man's deepest fears: fear of wounds, fear of death, fear of putting into danger the lives of those for whose well-being one is responsible. they touch too upon some of man's most violent passions; hatred, rage and the urge to kill."3
3. john keegan, the face of battle (new york: penguin books, 1976), 16.

in this torrent of passion uncontrollable thoughts raced through their minds. they had seen their officers take a walk or break or just cower, or go mute (as lieutenant dike was at this moment of crisis). if they did not have the option of walking away, they did have the option of not leading. no one could force them to do so.
just as they could not force dike to act. these n.c.o.s were toccoa men, all that was left in easy from that hot summer of 1942 and captain sobel. they had held the company together through a long stretch of inept command at the top and heavy losses among the enlisted ranks.
so this was the test. back in '42 the question was, can a citizen army be trained and prepared well enough to fight germans in a protracted campaign in northwest europe? hitler was not the only one who had answered no. but the answer that counted would come on the snow-filled fields of belgium in january 1945; for easy company the test was now being given.
the sergeants had it ready to be tested. the toccoa core of the company was ready to be led, and to lead. at this moment, speirs arrived, breathless. he managed to blurt out to dike, "i'm taking over."
sergeant lipton and the others filled him in. he barked out orders, 2nd platoon this way, 3rd platoon that way, get those mortars humping, all-out with those machine-guns, let's go. and he took off, not looking back, depending on the men to follow. they did.
"i remember the broad, open fields outside foy," speirs wrote in a 1991 letter, "where any movement brought fire. a german 88 artillery piece was fired at me when i crossed the open area alone. that impressed me."
standing at the site in 1991 with winters and malarkey, lipton remembered speirs's dash. he also recalled that when they got to the outbuildings of foy, speirs wanted to know where i company was. "so he just kept on running right through the german line, came out the other side, conferred with the i company c.o., and ran back. damn, that was impressive."
as the platoons with speirs moved out, 1st platoon started to move toward them. sergeant martin made a last-minute check. he noticed private webb, in firing position behind a tree, not moving. "come on, webb, let's go, get out, come on!" no response. "well, hell, they were still shooting, so i made a dash over to the tree, which is just a little bigger than your hand. and i jumped right on top of him, because it's hard to lay down beside. i turned him around and they'd shot him right between the eyes."
the company surged into foy. the men fired the full range of weapons available to a rifle company: m-1s, tommy guns, bazookas,
216
the breaking point
light machine-guns, mortars, and grenades. they had artillery support. they created a tremendous uproar with bullets zinging off buildings, explosions in the rooms from american grenades, the thump of the mortars taking off, the boom when they hit, scattering bricks and dust through the air.
resistance was strong, even so. german snipers, bypassed in the first rush, began to inflict casualties. no one could locate one guy especially, who had stopped movement at a corner with two hits. then shifty powers, the man who had spent so much of his youth spotting for squirrels in the upper tree trunks of the virginia mountains, called out, "i see 'em" and fired. "we weren't pinned down anymore," lipton remembered, "so we continued the attack."
everyone resumed firing and advancing. strong as the opposition had been, the germans—the 6th company of the 10th panzergrenadier regiment of the 9th panzer division—were only fighting a rear-guard action to cover a withdrawal to noville. still they fought tenaciously, skillfully, and without panic to keep the escape route open. but as speirs moved his men forward, and threatened to cut the road behind the german position, three tiger tanks lumbered off, all that was left of the panzer company. a platoon or so of infantry got out with them. some 100 germans, mostly wounded, surrendered. easy company had won the test of will. it had taken foy.
lipton and popeye wynn looked at the place where the sniper had held them up, the one powers shot at. they found the sniper with a bullet right in the middle of the forehead.
"you know," wynn commented, "it just doesn't pay to be shootin' at shifty when he's got a rifle."

yuemuping

it was early afternoon. a movie camera team moved in to take film of the victory. back on the ridge line at the edge of the woods, winters noticed two photographers taking pictures of the stretcher bearers bringing in the wounded from 1st platoon. "when the detail reached about 25 yards from the woods, well out of danger, one photographer put down his camera and dashed out to grab hold of the soldier to help carry him. he grabbed him in such a way that he got as much blood on the sleeve and front of his nice new, clean, heavily fleeced jacked as possible. then this guy turned toward his buddy, who was still taking pictures, and put on a big act of being utterly exhausted as he struggled across those final few yards to the woods. at that point he immediately dropped out."
that evening, colonel sink called for a meeting at regimental hq for all the principal parties involved in the attack. sink opened with a question for winters: "what are you going to do about company e?"
"relieve lieutenant dike and put lieutenant speirs in command," winters replied.
sink agreed with the decision, and the meeting ended. lieutenant foley also agreed. he wrote, "we were glad to see dike leave, not only because he failed the 1st platoon but even back in the woods when the 2nd platoon was hit with those tree bursts, it was evident that 'foxhole norman' wasn't meant to be our c.o." it quickly became clear that speirs was, indeed he had already demonstrated that, in the rush on foy.

13 attack
*
noville
january 14-17,1945
"when word came down for this attack, it pissed me off," winters remembered. "i could not believe that after what we had gone through and done, after all the casualties we had suffered, they were putting us into an attack. it just had the flavor of an ego trip for general taylor, a play to show eisenhower that now that taylor's back his troops will get off their asses and go into the attack."
that is not fair to general taylor. the attack was part of a general offensive designed to cut through to the north and link up with the u.s. first army, thereby trapping the german tanks in the tip of the salient. or as many as were left, after monty's shilly-shallying about getting going on the counteroffensive. the germans had begun to pull their tanks back. they could be expected to fight with all they had to keep that escape route open.
as to putting a company as badly mauled as easy into a frontal attack over a snowfield in bright daylight, this didn't come about because taylor wanted glory but because eisenhower needed men. he had no reserves available to throw into the attack, this was the moment to attack, he had to attack with what was there on the front lines. in other words, easy was paying the price for the policy of limited mobilization. there simply were not enough troops for the job.
after foy fell, easy and the other companies in 2nd battalion were put into regimental reserve, south of the village. at 0415 the following day, january 14, the germans launched a counterattack on foy with six tanks and a company of infantry. it was repulsed, but then another attack with fourteen tanks and a battalion forced the 3rd battalion of the 506th out of foy. easy was alerted, but with the help of artillery the 3rd battalion was able to mount its own successful counterattack and by 0930 was back in the village.
these actions were carried out under horrid conditions. another cold front had passed through the area. daytime temperatures were about 20 degrees f; at night the mercury plunged to below zero f. there was almost daily snow. it was difficult for division to move supplies up the bastogne-foy road because of drifts and demands elsewhere. as a result, the men of easy were almost as badly off as during the first week of the siege. there was not enough food. there were insufficient overshoes, blankets, and sleeping bags. bed sheets were used for snow suits.
the terrain in front of easy was also difficult. there was open ground to cross to get to noville, dense woods still to be cleared. the germans held the high ground and the solid belgian buildings in noville offered sniper and machine-gun positions while providing the germans with hiding places for tanks.
colonel sink told winters that 2nd battalion would have the honor of leading the attack on noville. he would jump off at 1200, january 14, moving from the woods south of foy around to the left (west), occupy the tiny village of recogne, then attack over an open, snow-covered field toward cobra, another tiny village a kilometer or so east of noville. on winters' left, 1st battalion would move north through the woods to clear them out.
winters was unhappy with the orders. he had 2 kilometers of snow-covered open fields to cross to get to cobra. it was a bright sunny day. why attack at high noon? winters would have preferred to wait through the night, then set out at first light to cross the field. but eisenhower wanted action, monty wanted action, taylor wanted action, sink wanted action, so 2nd battalion's hq, dog, easy, and fox companies would have to provide it.
there was a fairly deep shoulder running southwest out of noville to near recogne. winters saw that by sending his men straight for it, he could pick up more and more cover as they got closer to noville. he put the battalion in single file to cut through the snow, dangerous but quick.
as easy and the rest of 2nd battalion moved out, so did the 1st battalion on the left. german tanks in noville got 1st battalion in their sights and let loose with some 88s. they did not see 2nd battalion marching toward noville in the shelter of that shoulder.
winters glanced to his left. the 88s were tearing up the 1st battalion. "men were flying through the air," winters recalled. "years later, in the movie doctor zhivago, i saw troops crossing snow-covered fields, being shot into by cannon from the edge of the woods, and men flying through the air. those scenes seemed very real to me."
easy was having its own problems. german machine-guns in noville opened on the company, at a draw and stream that slowed the americans while they were exposed. speirs set up two of his machine-guns to answer the fire. as the american machine-gunners let loose with a burst, a group of eight or ten would dash across the small stream.
the stream was narrow enough for most of the men to jump across. but pvt. tony garcia, carrying an ammo bag with six rounds of mortar ammunition, fell into the stream. he was soaked. by the time his group reached noville, "my clothing had frozen, causing a crackling sound as i walked. this, however, saved me from going on an all-night patrol which was to have made contact with one of our own units. the platoon sergeant said i could be heard all the way to berlin and for me to stay put."1
1. garcia has another memory of that day: "one of the more disturbing incidents that affected me was seeing a horse standing in the snow helpless with one of its front legs shattered by a shell fragment. one of the noncoms mercifully put it out of its misery with a couple of bullets to the head. though man's brutality to one another is tragic enough, to see helpless animals suffer by his actions is even more tragic."

by 1530 2nd battalion had crossed the field and was snuggled up to the underside of the shoulder. by dark it had worked its way around to a draw on the southeast corner of cobru.
speirs held a meeting of the officers and 1st sergeant lipton. he outlined the plan of attack for the morning, up the draw to noville, with 2nd platoon on the left, 3rd on the right. friendly tanks were supposed to be coming up on the right in support on the foy-noville road. after the meeting speirs told lipton to lead the 2nd platoon in the attack.
lipton pulled 2nd platoon together to brief the men. winters stood to the side, listening. lipton told them the distance to the town was about 800 meters, that they should move quickly to get down the road and into the shelter of the buildings, that they should clear out the buildings working together as teams with rifles and grenades, that the mortar men should be ready to drop rounds on german strong points, that the machine gunners should set up and lay down a base of fire in support, that they should not bunch up, and so on. winters' sole comment was that the distance was more like 1,000 meters.
as the meeting broke up, the men could hear tank motors starting up and tanks moving around. it was not possible to determine if it was germans pulling out or americans coming along the foy-noville road.
winters remembers the night as the coldest of his life. there was little shelter, only hastily dug foxholes. the men had worked up a sweat getting to cobru. they shivered through the night. they would lie down and drift off, only to be awakened by intense shivering in their now-frozen clothes. most gave up on trying to sleep. it got so bad that at one point winters thought about ordering a night attack, but decided against it because of the danger of shooting each other in the confusion.
lipton was uneasy about leading 2nd platoon on an attack without knowing what was up ahead, so he decided to go forward with a radio man to scout the situation in noville. the two men came to a barn on the outskirts of the village, entered it by a door in the back and felt their way through to a door that opened into a courtyard near the main road through noville. everything was quiet. lipton called speirs on the radio to tell the c.o. where he was and to request permission to scout the town. he said he could see some sherman tanks up ahead and asked if speirs knew if american armor had already taken the town. speirs did not know and told lipton to look around.
lipton moved silently forward to the tanks. they were knocked out. american bodies lay frozen and strewn around them. they had been left there when team desobry had withdrawn from noville on december 20, almost a month earlier. the germans still held the town. lipton and his radio man withdrew.
the attack jumped off at dawn, january 15. there was resistance, strongest on the right hand side of the road against 3rd platoon. the 2nd platoon quickly got into the center of noville and up to the burned-out shermans. the 3rd platoon got into a burned-out building and set up a cp. over the radio came a message, "friendly armor on the right."
as lieutenant shames and sergeant alley got that message, they heard tanks outside the building. anxious to get the show on the road, alley told shames he was going to link up with those tanks. shames decided to join him. they moved by several burned-out buildings and rounded a corner into the main road. up ahead, between two buildings, partway out, was the tank they sought.
alley moved up to the side of the tank. the tank commander was standing in the turret looking the other way, so alley shouted to him over the roar of the engine to "come this way." the tank commander turned, and alley realized he had mistaken a german tank for an american. the german swore, dropped into his tank, and began traversing his turret toward alley and shames.
they said not a word to each other. they took off so fast they were kicking snow in the german's face. the tank followed. the americans ran around a corner. shames saw an open window and dived in head first. alley ran 3 meters or so past him and jumped into a doorway with his rifle ready for the infantry he was sure would be with the german tank.
the tank turned the corner and drove right past shames and alley. it came to the place where id platoon was clearing out buildings, near the burned-out shermans. lipton and his men dived under the shermans or ducked behind walls for protection. the german tank stopped and, swiveling its turret, put a shell into each one of the knocked-out shermans to prevent anyone from using their guns to put a shell into his tank as he drove past. lipton recalled, "when those shells hit the shermans, it felt to us under them that they jumped a foot in the air."
the tank roared out of town, headed north toward safety. a p-47 fighter plane spotted it, strafed it, and dropped a bomb on it, destroying the tank.
alley went to look for shames. he heard moaning and cries for help. when he got to the window shames had dived through, he looked and burst into laughter. he saw his lieutenant tangled up in bedsteads, springs, and furniture in a basement shames had not realized was there.
by noon, 2nd battalion held noville and had set up a perimeter defense. the little village and its surrounding hills had been an objective of the 101st since december 20. finally it was in american hands.
"we had looked northward at noville from our positions outside foy since shortly after we had arrived at bastogne," lipton wrote, "and we had convinced ourselves it would be our final objective in the bastogne campaign." but there was one more attack to make,- general taylor wanted 2nd battalion to move further north, in the direction of houffalize, to clear the village of rachamps.
rachamps was off the highway, over to the right (east). it was in a valley. the snow-covered ground sloped gently down to it from all sides, giving an effect similar to attacking from the rim of a saucer toward its center. the 2nd battalion attacked from the south and southwest, while 1st battalion on the left came down from north of the village. the men were well-spread and advanced steadily. the germans put up some resistance, mainly artillery using white phosphorus shells. but as the men of the 506th got to the outskirts of the village, most of the german defenders fled. as the americans moved in, the germans began bombarding the village.
sgt. earl hale was one of the first into rachamps. he and liebgott ducked into a barn, where they surprised and made prisoner six ss officers. hale lined them up nose to nose and told them that if he and liebgott got killed they were going to take the germans with them. hale covered them with his tommy-gun to make the point.
a shell exploded outside. hale was standing by the door. he got hit by a piece of shrapnel and went down. an ss officer pulled his knife from his boot and slashed hale's throat. he failed to cut an artery or sever the windpipe, but did cut the esophagus. blood gushed out. liebgott shot the officer who did the cutting, then the others. medic roe got sulfa powder on hale's wound. a jeep evacuated him to luxembourg, where an amazed doctor patched him up, leaving a crooked esophagus. because of hale's condition, the doctor gave him a medical order stating that he did not have to wear a necktie. (later, hale was stopped by an irate general patton who chewed him out for not wearing his necktie. hale triumphantly produced his slip of paper, leaving patton for once speechless.)
the easy victory at rachamps showed how completely the 101st airborne had won its head-to-head battles with a dozen crack german armored and infantry divisions. the americans had gone through a much more miserable month than the germans, who had an open and bountiful supply line. for the 101st, surrounded, there were no supplies in the first week and insufficient supplies thereafter. those were the weeks that tried the souls of men who were inadequately fed, clothed, and armed. this was war at its harshest, horrible to experience. the 101st, hungry, cold, under-armed, fought the finest units nazi germany could produce at this stage of the war. those wehrmacht and ss troops were well fed, warm, and fully armed, and they heavily outnumbered the 101st.

yuemuping

it was a test of arms, will, and national systems, matching the best the nazis had against the best the americans had, with all the advantages on the german side. the 101st not only endured, it prevailed. it is an epic tale as much for what it revealed as what happened: the defeat of the germans in their biggest offensive in the west in world war ii, and the turning of that defeat into a major opportunity "to kill germans west of the rhine," as eisenhower put it, was a superb feat of arms. the americans established a moral superiority over the germans. it was based not on equipment or quantity of arms, but on teamwork, coordination, leadership, and mutual trust in a line that ran straight from ike's hq right on down to e company. the germans had little in the way of such qualities. the moral superiority was based on better training methods, better selection methods for command positions, ultimately on a more open army reflecting a more open society. democracy proved better able to produce young men who could be made into superb soldiers than nazi germany.
what veterans of far-flung campaigns these german soldiers were was revealed in a little incident in rachamps. sergeant rader related it: "i almost killed a kraut prisoner for laughing at me after i got to the town, only to have someone grab my m-l and shout, 'sarge, he has no lips or eyelids!' he had lost them on the russian front, frozen off."
the battle made the 101st into a legend. the legend that began in normandy and grew in holland reached its climax in bastogne. the 101st airborne was the most famous and admired of all the eighty-nine divisions the united states army put into the second world war. ever since, men have worn that screaming eagle on their left shoulders with the greatest of pride.

in rachamps, speirs set up company cp in a convent. it was the first time the cp had been in a building since easy left mourmelon a month earlier. that night the nuns brought into the large hall of the convent a group of twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls to sing a serenade for e company. the program included french and belgian songs, several in english, and the german marching song, "lili marlene."
the next morning, january 17, the 17th airborne division relieved the 101st on the line. easy company got into trucks to begin a move to alsace. the trucks took the men back down the highway they had sat astride for four weeks, through bastogne. it was only the second time most of the men had seen bastogne— first on december 19 when they marched through the town while frightened american soldiers fled to escape the german onslaught, second on january 17, the town secured.
although the men had seen little of bastogne, that name— and the experience it represented—would stay with them forever. whenever thereafter a man from easy experienced cold or hunger or sleep deprivation, he would remind himself of bastogne and recall that he had been through much worse.
easy's losses were heavy. exact figures are impossible to come by; in the hurry-up movement out of mourmelon the company roster was not completed; replacements came in as individuals or in small groups and were not properly accounted for on the roster; wounded men dropped out of the line only to come back a few days later. an estimate is that easy went into belgium with 121 officers and men, received about two dozen replacements, and came out with 63. the easy men killed in action in belgium were sgt. warren muck, cpl. francis mellett, and pvts. a. p. herron, kenneth webb, harold webb, carl sowosko, john shindell, don hoobler, harold hayes, alex penkala, and john julian.
the best deion of the cost of the battle of the bulge to easy company comes from private webster, who rejoined the company during the truck ride to alsace. he had been wounded in early october; now it was mid-january. he wrote, "when i saw what remained of the 1st platoon, i could have cried; eleven men were left out of forty. nine of them were old soldiers who had jumped in either holland or normandy or both: mccreary, liebgott, marsh, cobb, wiseman, lyall, martin, rader, and sholty. although the other two platoons were more heavily stocked than the 1st, they were so understrength that, added to the 1st, they wouldn't have made a normal platoon, much less a company."
beyond the wounded and killed, every man at bastogne suffered. men unhit by shrapnel or bullets were nevertheless casualties. there were no unwounded men at bastogne. as winters put it, "i'm not sure that any who lived through that one hasn't carried with him, in some hidden ways, the scars. perhaps that is the factor that helps keep easy men bonded so unusually close together."
they knew each other at a level only those who have fought together in a variety of tactical situations can achieve, as only those who endured together the extreme suffering of combined cold, not enough food, and little sleep while living in constant tension could attain.
they knew fear together. not only the fear of death or wound, but the fear that all this was for nothing. glenn gray wrote, "the deepest fear of my war years, one still with me, is that these happenings had no real purpose. . . . how often i wrote in my war journals that unless that day had some positive significance for my future life, it could not possibly be worth the pain it cost."2
2. gray, the warriors, 24.

they got through the bulge because they had become a band of brothers. the company had held together at that critical moment in the snow outside foy because 1st sergeant lipton and his fellow n.c.o.'s, nearly all toccoa men, provided leadership, continuity, and cohesiveness. despite a new c.o. and new officers and enlisted recruits, the spirit of e company was alive, thanks to the sergeants. having winters as 2nd battalion xo and usually as acting battalion c.o. (lieutenant colonel strayer spent most of the month at regimental hq, working on an acting basis for colonel sink as s-3) was a great help. and speirs was proving to be an excellent company commander, able to draw out of the company its best.
that spirit was well described by webster. by this time webster had been wounded twice and returned to combat after each occasion. he would not allow his parents to use their influence to get him out of the front lines. he would not accept any position of responsibility within e company. he was a harvard intellectual who had made his decision on what his point of view of world war ii would be, and stuck to it.
he was a man of books and libraries, a reader and a writer, sensitive, level-headed, keenly observant, thoughtful, well-educated. here he was thrown in the most intimate contact (pressed together on an open truck on icy roads in hilly country, sleeping in a foxhole with other enlisted men) with ill-educated hillbillies, southern farmers, coal miners, lumbermen, fishermen, and so on among most of the enlisted men in the company. of those who had been to college, most were business or education majors. in short, webster was thrown in with a group of men with whom he had nothing in common. he would not have particularly liked or disliked them in civilian life, he just would not have known them.
yet it was among this unlikely group of men that webster found his closest friendships and enjoyed most thoroughly the sense of identification with others.
his deion of his truck ride with his platoon to alsace deserves to be quoted at length:
"we squished through the mud to our trucks and climbed in. mccreary and marsh lit cigarettes. martin made a wisecrack about a passing officer. i asked what had happened to hoobler. killed at bastogne. poor hoobler, who got such a kick out of war, dead in the snow. and the others? muck and his buddy penkala, who had the deepest hole in one position, had been killed by a direct hit. sowosko was shot through the head attacking foy. and so on. some replacements who had come in after holland had also died. a lot of men had been evacuated for trench foot, too many, mccreary thought. the platoon wasn't what it used to be."
webster thought that it was. he had followed a long and complicated route through the replacement depots to rejoin the company, a time of frustration and loneliness for him among that host of khaki-clad look-alike soldiers. now he was home, back with 1st platoon, back with easy company.
"it was good to be back with fellows i knew and could trust," he wrote. "listening to the chatter in the truck, i felt warm and relaxed inside, like a lost child who has returned to a bright home full of love after wandering in a cold black forest."
there were missing chairs at home. they belonged to the men who had been killed, badly wounded, or had broken. but as webster's reaction indicates, although easy had lost many members, and gained others, thanks to the former e company officers now on battalion or regimental staff and to the noncoms, it remained an organic whole.

14 the patrol *
haguenau
january 18-february 23,1945
in mid-january, desperate to save what they could of their men and equipment in the bulge, the germans launched a diversionary operation in alsace, code name nordwind (northwind), in an attempt to draw american troops from the ardennes area. as in the mid-december attack in the ardennes, they struck a thinly held sector of the front. (when patton's third army left alsace to go to the ardennes, u.s. seventh army had slid to its left to take over his position, as well as holding its own.) when nordwind began, eisenhower sent the 101st to alsace to bolster the line.
when word reached the paratroopers that they were to be taken by truck to alsace, it was accompanied by a rumor that turned out to be exaggerated: the germans had broken through. winters' thought was, my god, don't they have any else in this army to plug these gaps?
it was a long trip. alsace was 160 miles south and slightly east of bastogne. the weather was cold and miserable, with falling snow. the roads were slippery and dangerous. the trucks proceeded at a walking pace; men could jump off, relieve themselves, and catch up to reboard without difficulty. watching the process was often comical, however, because from outside to inside the men were wearing baggy pants, od pants, long underwear, and od colored undershorts. all had buttons—no zippers. men tried to get everything open while still wearing their gloves. sometimes it seemed to take forever.
the convoy went from bastogne to bellefontaine, virton, etain, toul, nancy, drulingen, arriving on january 20. the 506th pir went into regimental reserve.